Let’s start this post of with a disclaimer. I do program steady-state cardio, occasionally for variance and in small bouts for active recovery. For some individuals, it’s programmed as a form of mental recovery. So I’m not bashing that form of exercise (Not training, exercise. There’s a difference.). But, I don’t program steady-state cardio frequently because our programs are founded on three essential factors – safety (should be self explanatory), effectiveness (how quickly the program gets results, or, efficiency), and efficacy (the program does what we say it’s going to do) – and steady-state cardio doesn’t meet any of those criteria.

What is steady-state cardio? It’s simply endurance activities. Going long and far at submaximal intensities. Think further than 2km on the rower, or more than 3km of running, but doing so often, as in more than one to two times a week. I’m not referring to competing at these distances, I’m referring to regular exercise in these time and modal domains.

What does that form of exercise do for you? It develops your aerobic (cardiovascular/cardiorespiratory/endurance) capacity. It also makes you store fat and lose muscle. But endurance athletes look so slim? Sure they do, but they’re skinny-fat. It’s a phenomenon in which body weight is (really) low, but body fat is really high. This happens as a direct result of this form of training because muscle is heavy and requires a lot of energy and calories, whereas fat has a lot of calories and is the predominant fuel source during such long distances. So when you spend lots of time exercising in those time and modal domains your body naturally gets rid of muscle and holds on to fat.

To simplify that, simply compare the physiques of a 10km runner and and 800m sprinter. I used those distances because they’re not on complete ends of the spectrum like marathon runners and 100m sprinters. It should be very clear that the 10km runner is slim but with very little muscle tone – skinny fat. Whereas the 800m athlete is significantly more muscle bound. Not bulky, but with more muscle. That should be evidence enough, but still not convinced?

A good amount of research shows that individuals who frequently (more than twice a week) exercise in long distances have unduly high cortisol levels and very low testosterone levels. High cortisol + low testosterone = little muscle + lots of fat = skinny fat.

Now that I’ve cleared that up, AGAIN, let’s (AGAIN) look at how you can avoid that while still increasing your endurance capacity. You exercise at higher intensities for shorter durations and less frequently. Yes, less exercise = more favourable results, all round. And you get to spend more time living life instead of aimlessly pounding the roads. And what if you’re training specifically for endurance events? It’s in fact very much the same – less volume of endurance activities and more high intensity and strength work. Research shows that if all you’re doing is endurance training, and you cut that volume by 20% to replace it with properly programmed strength and conditioning work, your endurance performance INCREASES.

What does the undue amount of endurance exercise do for your health? Well you now know that cortisol and testosterone levels go out of whack, your muscle mass diminishes and that’s the most important factor relevant to lifespan, you’re at higher risk of developing overuse injuries, and stronger people are harder to kill in general.

To close, you can still be CrossFitting three or more times a week but end up skinny-fat and unhealthy because of the huge amount of endurance exercise you have been layering over that. Just as you can’t outtrain a shitty diet, you can’t out-eat too much endurance exercise.

Don’t you just love it when you’re eating out and say no thanks to dessert, and people offering or ordering dessert say “Go on, you’ll be able to burn it off in training,”? I don’t love it, it’s a pet peeve of mine. Especially because, in general, those people are the ones who need to be laying off the dessert so are only saying that to make themselves feel better. They are a bit misinformed too.

There are many misconceptions about exercise and nutrition, but the beliefs surrounding caloric (energy) expenditure and exercise are arguably the most common. There are two in particular.

If calories burned during exercise equal calories consumed you are in energy balance

The calorie balance consortium. You’ll find it interesting to learn that Coca Cola were (probably still are) big funders of the energy balance consortium who say that as long as the amount of calories you burn in exercise are equal to the amount of calories you consume, your body composition will not change. You should see red flags as soon as a big food company is involved in funding a message about food.

All calories are not created equal. Sure, the amount of energy a calorie yields is the same regardless of the source. 100 calories from a slice of cake are significantly different to 100 calories from some sweet potato. The cake comes with empty high glycemic carbs, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The energy from the sweet potato comes with minerals and nutrients – more than just energy.

The equation for caloric expenditure is also significantly more complex than it’s made out to be. There are too many variables for the everyday person with an Apple watch or FitBit to calculate accurately.You can get a pretty good idea of caloric expenditure from those devices, and an even more accurate result from more high tech heart rate monitors and their relevant software. But without some form of laboratory testing and control over what nutrition labels say about a food, you’re never going to be able to accurately compare calories in versus calories out.

The best you can do is ensure that the calories you are getting are from quality, whole food sources, and by measuring your macronutrient intake. Different to measuring caloric intake 😉

You need more “cardio” to burn more calories to reduce body fat

This is an interesting one. I’m not sure how this misconception came about, but it’s probably a combination or marketing hype, the other misconception that if you sweat more you’re burning more calories, and sheep……

Yes you read that correctly, sheep – they just follow the one in front!

The cool thing about this topic is that it’s been well researched. And the research is unequivocal – resistance-based exercise (weight training / weightlifting) performed in a high intensity format is more effective in reducing body fat while improving metabolic rate (for at least 16 hours after the session), insulin sensitivity, overall energy expenditure and cardiovascular disease risk factors. And the kicker is that these results have been shown in both healthy subjects and those who are obese, diabetic and with cardiovascular disease.

Just to drive the message home, all the above factors such as metabolic rate, insulin sensitivity and overall energy expenditure contribute to your total caloric expenditure!

So, take some weight training (kettlebells, medicine balls, dumbbells, barbells, sleds, etc.) and combine with other elements to create high intensity (high power output) workouts, and you’ll be burning more calories and doing more for your health than you would be if all you did was cardio-based training. You need the cardio-based stuff in there for both mental and physical health and variety, but in smaller doses.

Move load, move it quickly over long distances. Get leaner, more toned, and healthier. IF you combine that with a diet rich in whole food.

I hope Monday’s post gave you some good insight into the program. If it didn’t, or if it brought up some questions, then give me a shout – I love talking health and fitness 😉

There are some subtle differences in the current training block compared to the previous one. Here’s what you can expect, along with some definitions of terms you’ll commonly see in the workout of the day.

Strength Work

Firstly, every time we do strength work it will continue to be max effort work. That means you’ll go to the heaviest load you can manage, for that day, and for that rep scheme. You’ll typically see “heavy single/double/triple” in the notes. The differences between a heavy single and a 1-RM, for example, is that on a 1-RM attempt you may end up failing a lift because you’re attempting a PB. Whereas on a heavy single there should be no misses because you aren’t maxing out. This develops confidence in the lift, which in turn develops strength, and stronger people are harder to kill.

Instead of repeating the same upper/lower body strength movement for 3 weeks, the movement will change on every max effort day. For example, strict presses for upper body strength this week and potentially power jerks instead next time. This helps to prevent or break plateaus, and also give you more exposure to different strength work more often.

There’ll be differences in the L1 and L2 streams here. L1 athletes will simply have more volume and tempo work. Why we do this will be explained in upcoming posts. L2 athletes will be working primarily on heavy singles.

Gymnastics strength work will still be paired with these strength movements. It’s an efficient and effective way to develop bodyweight strength, and strict gymnastics work is your foundation for all kipping work. As you will have seen in Monday’s post too, gymnastics comes before weightlifting in the CrossFit hierarchy of development.

Aerobic/Endurance Conditioning

We used a bit more of the long time domain efforts in the previous phase, but now you can expect to see long interval work. Remember, this doesn’t mean we stop the longer metcons, we’re simply layering in more variance.

The GI Jozi sessions will continue to be light and non-technical but you can expect to see an increasing volume of work per session. The Endurance Club is going to have lots of time in the saddle, with a sprinkling of movements designed to interfere with the muscle groups used in rowing.

Gymnastics Conditioning

Instead of just strict gymnastics work you’ll be doing more gymnastics-based metcons in order to improve upper body endurance and stamina. Sometimes there’ll be a gymnastics push and pull, and sometimes a gymnastics movement will be coupled with a weightlifting movement that will interfere with the working muscles. You may not feel the lungs work much on these, but you’ll feel a lot of local muscular fatigue. Aside from swimming and cross country skiing (like the ski-erg), this is the best way to improve the endurance of upper body musculature.

On other days, gymnastics conditioning will be more skill-based. This is where you’ll learn the progressions for a new skill, improve a skill, or improve your capacity in a skill. As Greg Glassman says, a fitness program devoid of gymnastics practice and skills is deficient. This is also the sort of stuff you can’t do anywhere else. Even many CrossFit affiliates don’t have the space or resources for gymnastics skill work like rope climbs.

The CFJ Gymnastics program runs in 6-week blocks with classes on Thursday nights at 18h30 at CFJ East. The next intake is in 2 weeks so book in for even more gymnastics skill work that you won’t see in class!

Supplementary Exercises

A good CrossFit program should be injury prevention by design. However, I do still believe that there is room for accessory work. Such work is intended to keep you injury free by preventing any imbalances from developing while keeping the areas of most use (shoulders, midlines, knees) strong and stable.

To remind you yet again, the goals are to continue developing a broad fitness throughout life. Sometimes, you need a more tailored approach. That’s why we have coach Zuleikha in a new role at the gym to help you with goal setting, but more importantly to direct you to the best services we have to offer for those goals. So if you do feel like you’re a bit stuck, then reach out.